WPP merges Wunderman Thompson and VMLYR to create global powerhouse in VML with more than 30,000 people in 64 markets
WPP today announced a major evolution in its offering to clients with the merger of Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R. The combined entity will be known as VML and will be the industry’s largest creative company.
VML unites two of the most awarded creative agencies in the world, each with world-class commerce, customer experience and marketing technology capabilities. VML will be equipped to support clients on creative brand growth strategy and transformation initiatives, all powered by best-in-class data operations, technology platforms and partnerships with leading technology companies. It will also provide an exceptional offer for healthcare companies and B2B marketers.
Respective client bases, functional expertise and geographic strengths mean the agencies are highly complementary and the combined company will have more than 30,000 people in 64 markets.
Jon Cook becomes VML Global CEO and Mel Edwards VML Global President (pictured), with the broader management team bringing together strong leaders from across both companies.
Says Cook: “The future of building strong brands and businesses requires the interconnectivity of brand experience, commerce and customer experiences. We recognised the immediate opportunity to create what every consultancy and advertising agency aspires to build with the formation of VML. We’re especially excited to present our new offering to the industry as we don’t believe there is another company as creatively awarded with our depth in customer experience and commerce.”
“This is the right suite of capabilities, offered at just the right moment, at unprecedented scale,” says Edwards. “It’s incredibly exciting because with this new agency we have the chance to shape the future of modern marketing in every key market around the world. The opportunities it affords our people and the growth we can deliver for our clients at a global scale make this a real game-changer for each business and the wider industry.”
Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R were launched in 2018 and have experienced sustained growth since their inception – through client development, new business and acquisitions. Each agency is globally renowned for its creativity and capabilities, with Wunderman Thompson named as Campaign’s Integrated Network of the Year and an Ad Age Standout Agency, and VMLY&R ranked #7 globally at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and #2 on the Ad Age A-List.
Their breadth of expertise has also been recognised by technology partners – including Adobe, BigCommerce, Contentful, Microsoft, Salesforce and Sitecore – and by industry analysts. Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R are among the companies recognised by the Forrester Wave™ Reports naming WPP as a ‘Leader’ in Commerce Services, Global Digital Experience Services, Global Marketing Service Providers and most recently Marketing Measurement and Optimisation.
Says Mark Read, CEO of WPP: “Scale matters in today’s world as AI and technology transform marketing and global clients look to simplify their relationships. VML will combine world-class creativity with deep expertise in data, marketing technology and platforms to deliver competitive advantage for ambitious brands. It’s another important step forward for WPP as we continue to reshape our offer for the future, simplify our business and unlock further benefits of scale.
“Separately, Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R are two of WPP’s strongest and best-performing agencies. Together, they will deliver an even wider, fully integrated suite of capabilities to our clients in every market. Marketers today expect seamless links between their brand advertising and technology solutions and platforms. VML provides an immediate solution to this business imperative.”
Immediate leadership appointments include Debbi Vandeven, Global Chief Creative Officer; Eric Campbell, Global Chief Client Officer; Juan Pablo Jurado, CEO LATAM; Ewen Sturgeon, CEO EMEA; and Audrey Kuah and Yi-Chung Tay, Co-CEOs APAC.
Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R have partnered globally across clients such as Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company and more.
VML will be operational from 1 January 2024.
48 Comments
“The future of building strong brands and businesses requires the interconnectivity of brand experience, commerce and customer experiences.” Er no. Surely not changing your name and offering every 4 years. Surely not having people on the client’s business that change every 18 months. Surely not destroying years of brand equity. Surely a consistent name and positioning of the offering is key.
Should have gone with WPPVMLY&RWT.
WPPWTVMLYR has a nice ring to it.
Wow – I can’t wait to trust this network with my own brand, seeing how amazingly they manage their own.
So every 2 years or so they are going to take one of their agencies and smash it into another until there are none left?
The way WPP operate has been a joke for a very long time now
?
Business gonna business.
Wonder how many great people will be discarded in this move
It seems WPP’s view of the future of strong brands is to keep changing them?
How many legendary, iconic brands have they destroyed over the years. And for what exactly?
In one fell swoop, two of the world’s oldest agencies in J. Walter Thompson and Young & Rubicam have been obliterated.
263 years of history down the drain.
Yes, I’m aware it’s just by name only. I know you can make an argument that Lord & Thomas is still operating by proxy of FCB (f.k.a. Foote, Cone & Belding).
But let’s be real; who among us knows that VML stands for Valentine McCormick Ligibel, est. 1992? I know I didn’t before today.
And now, that amorphous three-letter acronym supplants all else.
At this rate, I give DDB and Ogilvy 10 & 20 years respectively before they’re swallowed whole. That might be too generous, come to think of it…
Of course, we shouldn’t forget that Wunderman was branded as ‘Impiric’ briefly in the 90’s
This actually makes sense. Takes two strong businesses and merges the available talent and skill so they can array over a larger set of clients. Plus halve the back office, head office, non billable overhead so that saving can flow to remunerating the people who actually do the work.
What about the people? It’s obvious that it’s a cost exercise, so we should think about the people who are about to loose their jobs.
Xmas redundancies
Wunderman Thompson has already done the clean out
Next
What a complete cluster.
Agree with above, WPP keeps proving and re-proving to their clients they cannot fathom brand and business management.
Imagine rolling up to P&G and saying you understand their business and you’re the right partner for them? They’d laugh you out of the room.
You DO NOT build business from org charts.
You CAN NOT smash together two agencies and expect something better out the other end (let alone 4 agencies)
You NEVER succeed by driving ‘cost efficiencies’ in advertising – it’s from better work, better thinking, better selling
How they manage conflict in each market
I can think of:
George Patterson
Bates
Young and Rubicam
J Walter Thompson
Wunderman
Ideaworks
any more?
The Campaign Palace
Mattingly
Shoulda named it FML
Would be good to know who stays and who goes in the VMLY&R and WT businesses.
Surely the new VML wouldn’t require two CEOs, two CCOs or National ECDs, two National Heads of Strategy etc. Definitely sets the stage for a biblical wave of redundancies. What a well timed WPP Christmas gift.
Is it still a redundancy if the business changes / merges? What happens then?
Plenty of work going around at the merged agency Noah. Opportunities for people to hold dual roles and shared responsibility. This new agency will be on a growth trajectory.
Half the agency were brought into a room and told ‘If you’re in this room, you’re safe. Sorry, that’s the other room. HR will be in touch. Dont say anything to anyone.’
Don’t forget prior to Patts and Y&R merger, Patts’ owner sadly folded The Campaign Palace and Y&R folded Mattingly
@How many local brands have folded into this?: Bloody hell… that’s sobering.
Add Meerkats to the mix, too (absorbed into Wunderman Thompson’s Perth office).
Already AKQA aren’t they?
if business is not going well and all based on overheads and cutting costs.
Like the clemenger group moving all of the individual agencies into the one building next year.
The day of the multi national is over.
Come in, the water is warm
….. but a strange yellowish colour.
Howdy
Their business sucks but the idea of grey deserves a chance to evolve. It’s the most poetic ad name out there.
And vmly&rjwt must be aware of themselves. everyone knows about this alphabet soup joke. Those getting mad about the acronym probably can’t see that this is one of the longest-running jokes in ad history.
No one, including the senior leadership, in any of the agencies here knew anything before the start of the week. It’s going to be SUCH a mess
They should merge with MediacomEssenceIkonAKQA and add media to their offer….
Brand management experts…
Sure, Jan
Deck chair shuffling.
Yet another move by WPP to consolidate off the back of poor performance. It’s the same line wheeled out when VML merged with Y&R and WT merged with JWT. To quote the CB article from 2019: “The new organization of more than 20,000 people in 90 markets will be fully operational in early 2019. It promises to be distinctively positioned as a provider of end-to-end solutions – through creative, data, commerce, consulting and technology services – at a global scale.”
All leadership members would be shitting themselves now. And worried about what this means to their roles and pay checks.
Especially horrible that they were told the same time as all the other staff.
Mergers are cruel cruel cruel exercises.
I would totally alphabetti spaghetti the logo.
The beginning of the end.
Hands up who’s been gently ripped by the white rhino
This is so sad.
I spent significant chunks of my career (such as it was) at Y&R, Thompsons and some of the others listed earlier who are no longer with us.
Sure they had their faults back then, and even more when viewed in retrospect.
But JWT and Y&R stood for something.
It is indeed truly ironic that WPP (and their ilk) sell themselves as brand custodians and experts at extracting value from brands whilst destroying their own.
I always thought VML stood for something like Virtual Media Lab. I had no idea it was Initials. Nice as Mr Valentine & Co may have been, their anonymity is further evidence of this.
Schadenfreude is always enjoyable when observing the travails of these holding companies, but less so when one recalls the number of people who were cast aside along the way.
The view by analysts on this ‘transformative’ merger is less superficial than what is gladly accepted by agency friendly industry news channels.
All analysts point out than any cost savings will have to be on the back of ‘scale’ (ie job cuts) despite the Jon Cook’s assertion that no job cuts are being considered (for now).
The claim that the new VML will enable it to better compete against the consulting giants like Accenture is very much in doubt.
Consulting firms connect with clients at the top and the execution (which may or may not include advertising) follows downstream.
Agencies (regardless of name or scale) engage on only one aspect of operations and have to swim upstream to reach the audience of the C-suite.
At best, the banks believe any real change will come with huge consolidation risks.
So if one is smart, get out before Jan.
Either start your own business with clients who trust you or get a job before the flood of CVs flood the usual suspects.
Or stay on and what whether this masterplan of WPP will bear fruit.
How many times can you circle the wagons before the whole shit show disappears up it’s own bum ?
Groundhog Day. WPP always do this shit in November and dump the redundancy cost in this FY, cleaning it all nicely up for next FY where the bonuses can look meatier for the few left at the top. Merry VML ya’ll.
It’s easier to sell one company than many. Is that the big picture at play here? To sell one goliath to an investment company?